Submission to a higher ideal; the likes of God, morality, the state, the collective, the corporation, the idealized self; all of these have served as purposes to submit oneself to, to make of the self something greater than the self, and become part of something larger and more important. Just as people have physiological needs in the form of food, water, shelter, so too do they have psychological needs, a requirement to find security and identity in a connection to something external. Individuals cannot live entirely alone.
That humans require more than just mechanical sustenance is not a new idea.
Meaning, in this sense, acts as a decision-making tool, a dreamcatcher against aimlessness.1 Seen this way, individuals require some choice of meaning as a protection against the gnawing uncertainty, doubt, and anxiety that results from not knowing how one fits into the entirety of humankind. Freedom of choice leads to a paralysis; lacking a higher authority to tell one what to do, a person loses the comfort of knowing what is required of them and what they should do. The liberties so painstakingly fought for over the last several centuries are only the foundation; they allow us to find a greater happiness for ourselves, but are woefully lacking in guidance on how to do so. Some choices of meaning preserve the individual’s right to free expression, others dominate it and subordinate the individual to another power, but all serve as a solution to the problem of the solitude of freedom. Meaning gives certainty. Meaning acts as an authority to ease the cognitive burdens of mankind.
A particular choice of meaning, however, has a peculiar characteristic: it is exclusive. Valuing one thing, such as God and an immortal afterlife, necessarily means devaluing other things, such as the current mortal reality. You can only choose one.
This brings with it a problem: how can one be sure that their particular choice of meaning is correct?
Certain possibilities that one might choose have become passé, like the pursuit of money, fame, or power as ends in and out of themselves. The so-called “Protestant work ethic” as an organizing principle of one’s life is also growing increasingly outmoded. Many of those who pursue these ends have found themselves broken and disillusioned, scammed of the happiness and fulfillment promised to them through the pursuit. Upon acquiring what they sought, they found the idols to be false and hollow, devoid of worth to compensate the effort invested. With the growing awareness that what society engenders people to seek after is not worth it in the first place, the individual must inevitably ask the question: is there anything that is “worth it?” What of other sources of meaning, like religion or moral goodness? Here, we have neither conclusive evidence for or against the possibility of attaining happiness through adherence. What if these, too, are fool’s gold in the end?
A gnawing despair burrows into the soul of the individual. Why choose, if all may result in wasted years and lost vitality through a wrong choice? It seems as though there may be no hope for success, and thus the individual does not choose; the gain of freedom of choice may lead to a loss of purpose, as the clarity of (lack of) decisions that one has when within a system of authority (parental, governmental, educational) melts away upon leaving it. This can understandably cause a great deal of mental distress.
Underlying this despair are two assumptions: First, that one cannot change their choice and instead must choose a single purpose and pursue it without wavering. Second, that there is a choice which is fruitful, and many others which are not. Assuming the first means that the individual must agonize over their choice, a source of suffering which may cause no choice to be taken at all. Assuming the second means at all times, distressing over whether one’s given choice is the correct one; for if it turns out it is not, then effort becomes waste, and one bemoans that they have spent less time on a meaning that did matter than they could have. But neither assumption, I believe, is correct.
Fundamentally, we must admit of the unknowability of the worth of certain purposes. To go back to religion, Christianity’s “worth” stems entirely from forces and actors outside of the realm of human observability, and thus inherently cannot be proven or disproven. From this, we can see that the entire space of possible meanings for one’s life is unknowable, as how can one plausibly “prove” that one’s choice of meaning is a worthier choice than Christianity?
If we admit of the unknowability of purpose, it behooves us to treat possibilities as degrees of confidence, not as black-and-white. And if we begin to see all possibilities as shades of gray, with their various merits and demerits, then we can also admit of the possibility that no choice has any meaning, that perhaps life intrinsically has no purpose.
It might seem like this is depressing, but it’s actually liberating. For if we accept the possibility that we can never know whether the path we are taking is ultimately one that will make life meaningful, it frees us from anxiety that our individual path is a correct one. If our base assumption is that life might not result in anything, then any direction taken can only help rather than harm. After all, the worst that can happen from a given choice of meaning is that nothing happens. The individual acquires a confidence in what they pursue and prioritize, not in the certainty that it is their one true purpose, but instead that anything is fine to pursue, and that if it doesn’t work out, another choice can easily be made without losing anything; after all, if there might not be a true meaning to life, there’s nothing to lose by choosing a different one. Acceptance of a potential meaninglessness is, in this way, foundational; it provides a solid base from which to search and explore confidently. Paradoxically, letting go of meaning makes it easier to find meaning.
Understanding that we might not be able to escape an eventual worthlessness, that we cannot know whether we will be able to, is the basis of a good life; something the Stoics understood well. Per Epictetus, “End the habit of despising things that are not within your power, and apply your aversion to things that are within your power. […] Those new to this philosophy must first secure their sphere of power, before they can discern what is worthy of desire.” Accept that a certainty of purpose is an illusion, and you secure a confidence to pursue purpose.
↥1 I use “meaning” here to describe a system, taken by an individual, of deciding what is worth prioritizing and doing (or perhaps not doing!); in other words, what matters in life. Another way to look at it is like “purpose.”
The specific choice of terminology is not a particularly interesting topic to me; the word “meaning” seems to be close enough for what we have under discussion. Characteristics and consequences of the underlying concept of an individual’s self-determination, and the choice of system thereof is what we care about; we discuss the concept, not the word (which is necessarily imprecise).
Intentionally Irrational